1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to facilitating communication over a data network. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to a method for adapting an exact-match lookup engine to hierarchically structured variable-length identifiers.
2. Related Art
The proliferation of the Internet and e-commerce continues to fuel revolutionary changes in the network industry. Today, a significant number of information exchanges, from online movie viewing to daily news delivery, retail sales, and instant messaging, are conducted online. An increasing number of Internet applications are also becoming mobile. However, the current Internet operates on a largely location-based addressing scheme. The two most ubiquitous protocols, the Internet Protocol (IP) and Ethernet protocol, are both based on location-based addresses. That is, a consumer of content can only receive the content by explicitly requesting the content from an address (e.g., IP address or Ethernet media access control (MAC) address) closely associated with a physical object or location. This restrictive addressing scheme is becoming progressively inadequate for meeting the ever-changing network demands.
In general, a network device, such as an IP router or Ethernet switch, receives a packet at one of its input ports (e.g., a network interface). The device then performs a lookup to identify an output port to which the packet should be forwarded based on the packet's destination address. An IP router typically uses a longest-prefix-match lookup engine, whereas an Ethernet switch uses an exact-match lookup engine. These devices are not adapted to process a packet with a variable-length identifier.